Monkeys, Elephants, and Kitties, Oh My!

From Bangkok

Ko Chang: great beaches, great weather, abundant tropical fruit, friendly kitties, and as always in Asia, it’s cheap. We’re staying in a bungalow about 20 yards from the beach, with a cool morning breeze sliding up the planked floor to wake us. The sand is soft, with sea shells the size of babies’ fingernails, the water refreshing, and the sunshine abundant.

From Ko Chang

As you may know we’re here with Keppie and his friend (now ours too) Donna from England.

From Ko Chang

Our stay on a tropical island started roughly, however: Laura was sick to her stomach for two days, throwing up until all that was left was brake-fluid colored bile – and that came up, too. But so much better to be sick in a bungalow by the beach than a cold apartment in Nanjing.

Mostly we’ve done exactly what we came here to do, sit on the beach, relax, and try not to let the Polak in me get burnt. But we have had an outing or two around the island. Yesterday we went to see an elephant camp. Our elephant a 13 year old girl named Anna took us on a tour of a “jungle.”

From Ko Chang

This was the lame part of the tour; the only jungle we went through with this elephant was clear cut a long time ago and replaced with pines and some other mundane trees. The fun part was swimming with the elephant. This animal is huge and seems even bigger as it crashes into the water sending you flying off.

From Ko Chang

From Ko Chang

From Ko Chang

After the tour we decided to spend some money on sugar cane to feed the elephant. Anna the elephant saw us buying the sugar cane and began to struggle against the chain holding her leg to a large wooden pole. Once within reach she grabbed the out reached sugar cane with her trunk and in a few chews of her massive jaw it was gone. Our entire first batch of sugar cane went very quickly in this manner. We did better our next batch, holding the sugar cane behind our backs. Laura fed Anna without a hitch (excluding a minor tug on her pants). By holing the sugar cane behind our backs, we got elephant trunk hugs. When I fed Anna, she took the sugar cane very quickly, and my camera with it. Now I’m standing there fighting with an ELEPHANT for my camera. These are big, strong animals and she wasn’t about to give up her sugar cane. To my luck I managed to pop the sugar cane out the side of her trunk grip and hold on tight enough to win my possession back. After feeding her we went to pet her. She bored of this in about 10 seconds and gave Laura a hearty head butt. That was her way of saying “goodbye.” (Or, go get me some more sugar cane, chick.)

From Ko Chang

href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/kvxFB06X8-bhM5yD1Stt0g?feat=embedwebsite”> From Ko Chang

Lastly, we fed a monkey tied to a swing – he took my elastic and tried to steal Laura’s ring. When she tried to trade him pineapple for the elastic so that he would choke when he started chewing on it, he bit her on the leg – no skin broken though. Naughty monkey.

From Ko Chang

Here’s some pictures of monkeys playing on the power lines – I thought it was a huge squirrel when it jumped out of the bushes and onto the power lines!

From Ko Chang

From Ko Chang

Monkey butt:

From Ko Chang

The Biggest Jewelry Box Ever

Matt and I are on vacation for Chinese New Year (I love working in Asia) and we’re visiting Keppy in China. We spent our first day in Bangkok, where we saw the Grand Palace, what looks like the biggest, shiniest jewelry box on earth.

We had to take a water taxi to get there – 18 baht for us, 130 baht for unsuspected tourist in “tour groups” (though the brochure was worth at least 120)

From Bangkok

In English style, guards stood outside

From Bangkok

In Asian style, eight enormous demon and monkey statues also stood guard to the entrances

From Bangkok

From Bangkok

The buildings in the central area were painted with 24 karat gold leaf and lined with colored glass tiles that twinkled like jewels in the tropical sun – rubies, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds.

From Bangkok

From Bangkok

From Bangkok

There are three main buildings beside the temple of the Emerald Buddha, each done in a different style. The first style is Cambodian,
painted in gold leaf. (Thailand and Cambodia were once one kingdom.) The second building is Thai style, and the last is a combination, Thai on bottom and Cambodian on the top.

From Bangkok

From Bangkok

From Bangkok

From Bangkok

Inside these buildings are the ashes of the kings and the sacred Buddhist scrolls. One building was built for the Emerald Buddha, but it was too small for the ceremonies.

I forget what this gold thing is, but I love the men holding it. They are demons and monkeys (though they look the same to me).

From Bangkok

From Bangkok

From Bangkok

From Bangkok

From Bangkok

From Bangkok

From Bangkok

I also forget what these are, but they were pretty, too

From Bangkok

This is part of the mural that wrapped around the wall of the religious part of the palace. It tells the story of the first Rama King. Like the story of Helen of Troy, the demon stole his wife the Queen and the king called upon a monkey demon to help him. Many battles ensued – including one in which the monkey unknowingly fights his bastard half-mermaid, half-monkey, star-yawning son. This fight shows when the bad guys put all of the good guys to sleep.

From Bangkok

The Emerald Buddha is the main attraction. It’s actually carved from one solid piece of Jade. You cannot point your toes at the Buddha, because feet are dirty. He has 3 sets of clothes for different seasons, which the King puts on him in a ceremony. Right now he’s wearing his winter clothes.

From Bangkok

This is his palace.

From Bangkok

These are the gardens outside of the main reception hall for state banquets. It gives me the feeling I had outside of Versailles.

From Bangkok

This is the main reception hall. The bottom is European style and the top is Thai style.

From Bangkok

Here’s a link to the album, with more shiny parts:

Bangkok

Then, we had some yummy real Pad Thai, and later some Indian. Next stop, the tropical island of Ko Chang!

Yangsuo

Yangsuo (Yang swure)
Yangsuo is often called a western enclave in China. This means you can get all sorts of Western/American food cooked by Chinese who have never had the real thing at the same prices as back home. With that said, it was sure nice to have some pizza, a breakfast that didn’t include rice, and a really good latte.
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The first two days we spent biking around Yangsuo. The whole area is filled with large rocky hills that rise from flat grounds to high peaks and fall equally quickly. The first day we hired a guide for 140RMB ($20) for a wonderful country side bike tour. 6 hours later we had toured through three villages, rice paddies, Gin Ju orchards (Cumquat), and in between majestic hills. Like many people in Yangsuo our guide was a farmer and dabbled in tourism, leaving his parents to tend to his Orchards, rice paddies, 3 cows, 10 chickens, and 5 dogs.

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Biking in Yangsuo

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A water buffalo used to plow the feilds

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Another field we just wandered into

On our third day we took a bus way up river with the intent of taking a five hour hiking trail back down. What we didn’t count on was having to cross the river twice. We got to the trail head, or at least across the river from the trail head. The man that ran the boat across wanted way too much money to ferry us across. So we opted to cruise down the river on a bamboo raft with a Spanish couple we met when they had the same problem.

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The Li River. This picture is on the front of the local cigarette package

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The Spanish couple we split the raft with

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Local River Commerce

As an aside, dear reader, you must understand that there are two prices for everything in China: what the locals pay and what white people pay. After hard bargaining you can get close to what the Chinese pay for goods and services. We still haven’t been able to bridge that last gap. I give this anecdote so you know our frame of mind when we encountered this raft man. He knew he had us, it was off season and he’s the only ferry there. So he was just going to stone wall us until we paid him, or bought a more expensive service. Well, after telling him “I’ll just walk across the water like Jesus” we paired up with the Spanish couple and paid a reasonable price for the bamboo raft down river.

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Our raft looked a lot like this

We spent the next couple of days biking through the hills, meeting some local Chinese people, and spending enough time in my favorite coffee shop in all of greater Eurasia to finish reading “Tipping Point” cover to cover. We also did our fair share of hiking into peoples farms. One of the great things about being white and in China is you can go most places, even places you have no business being in, without anyone saying a thing. For example, one day we hiked up the side of a steep hill into a massive hidden farm on the plateau. From the trail and the small greenhouses, and the plastic covered trees this farm looked like it should be a secret cocoa or marijuana farm. However, after sampling the crop I can assure you it was another cumquat orchard.

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A Gin Ju Orchard

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Dragon Bridge. Around 2,000 years old.

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Mmmmm, Chinese Veggie Burger

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A cow in another farm we just strolled through

Click here for the album photos

Chinese Christmas Part 1

I miss Christmas. I miss fighting over which tree to chop down, my step dad sawing the bottom shorter and shorter because the base is crooked, leaving no room for presents underneath. I miss baking Christmas cookies (we have no oven). I’ve singing Christmas songs in the shower and humming during class.

Our students have decorated their classrooms with the polyester Christmas trees and gawdy, sparkley garland I remember from my youth, before my mom fell in love with country-style Martha Stewart decorations. Down in the main shopping district, Xinjiekou (shin-jay-ko), amid the neon lights, are Chinese style Christmas decorations, a blend of western Christmas ideas and displays for Chinese New Year. Next year is the year of the cow. My favorite display is a huge cow-Santa in a sleigh riven by cows with wings (brings to mind Bible stories of the golden calf!)

Christmas parties in China are more like concerts. Our students performed a concert complete with Karoke, hip hop, skits, and orchestra performances (what a mix). We had to perform at the Department of Education Christmas party – I was Pretty the Dwarf and we both danced in the Time Warp. Here are some pictures:

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From 照片

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From 照片

From 照片

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The Education Department Christmas Party:
Beautiful location – I think people must get married here:

From JCIE Xmas Party

From JCIE Xmas Party

Our boss Xena as Chinese MC:

From JCIE Xmas Party

Our friends Craig and Trevor as Western MCs

From JCIE Xmas Party

My theatrical debut as Pretty, one of Teacher White’s dwarfs:

From JCIE Xmas Party

From JCIE Xmas Party